A total of 54 rivers have dried up in Bangladesh due to the water sharing problem with India while the government itself is destroying the most important mangrove forest Sundarbans gradually and the perpetrators are enjoying absolute impunity.
The government has never given enough importance to environment issues while formulating development policy and plan.
Almost all the rivers around Dhaka have become polluted, industrial waste and chemicals used in agro-production is contaminating the water and soil putting public health at risk as these poisonous chemicals enter the human body.
Sound pollution has become a nightmare for many but the authorities concerned seem hardly bothered about that.
In such a scenario, Bangladesh observed the World Environment Day 2015 on Friday, June 05.
Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA) general secretary Abdul Matin told the FE that the mindset of the government posed the major challenge for protecting environment of Bangladesh as the Sundarbans is being destroyed by its initiatives.
The government pretends to have done many things to protect environment like formation of the national taskforce on river protection. But the taskforce and the deputy commissioners who are supposed to save the rivers were not doing enough. Even some were helping culprits in grabbing rivers, said Mr Matin.
There were 1500 rivers in Bangladesh 1,000 years ago. The number came down to 230 in recent years. As many as 54 rivers have dried up as India does not give water and the government feels shy even to talk about the issue, although India is realising all of their demands from Bangladesh, he added.
Regarding sound pollution, Mr Matin said it is the common people who are being affected by sound pollution and the authority does not bother about it. There is a law to prevent sound pollution but its enforcement is absent.
"The government enacts law to get public appreciation. They even do not believe in the laws they enact," said Mr Matin, adding people will damage environment and the role of the government is to protect it.
Another environment activist who is Poribesh Bachao Andolon (POBA) chairman Abu Naser Khan thinks Bangladesh faces environmental challenges from three perspectives: international, regional and local.
Global warming and water sharing in terms of both quantity and quality are the international and regional issues while locally environment pollution is mostly relevant with urbanisation.
He blamed the government's present economic policy for the deteriorating environment of Dhaka. Balanced development has not taken place as the development activities are Dhaka-centric which were done only for a group of people and that environment was never given due importance in the development plans, he added.
The jungle of concrete is expanding fast to accommodate the excess population, but the civic services are not increasing or improving. Water, soil and air are being polluted due to industrialisation and other causes the process of which has become a major public health concern as these chemicals enter the human body through food chain causing diseases like cancer, kidney damage and many others.
He said Bangladesh has increased agro-production but the production capacity of the agricultural land and land areas is decreasing. The groundwater level is getting alarmingly depleted with the increased use of water in industries.
"Although the sound limit should be 35 decibels in silence zone and 45 decibels in residential areas, we have seen by taking reading on the sound of horn honking of vehicles at various parts of the city that the sound ranges between 65 and 100 decibels," he said.
Talking to the FE, environment and forest minister Anwar Hossain Manzu said individually Bangladesh is very poor in tackling the present environmental problems and that world resources have to be put together for this.
Acknowledging the fact that hardly any laws and policies could be implemented here to tackle the local environmental challenges, the minister said the problem exists not only in Bangladesh but in the whole subcontinent where people are very democratic.
"My department has a role to protect environment but we cannot implement the laws," said Mr Manzu.
He said his ministry is mainly run with international fund and that things will improve gradually.
"Things will improve but it will take its own course for survival," said the Jatiya Party minister.
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Environment under human onslaught
Kamrun Nahar | Published: June 06, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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